“… given sufficient ignorance, one can doubt evolution….”

— Steven E. Landsburg

The Big Questions: Tackling the Problems of Philosophy with Ideas from Mathematics, Economics and Physics

Last update June 3, 2021. History

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“If the history-deniers who doubt the fact of evolution are ignorant of biology, those who think the world began less than ten thousand years ago are worst than ignorant, they are the deluded to the point of perversity.”

Richard Dawkins book The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution

Source: The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution

“We dare not tempt them with weakness. For only when our arms are sufficient beyond doubt can we be certain beyond doubt that they will never be employed.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

1961, Inaugural Address
Context: Finally, to those nations who would make themselves our adversary, we offer not a pledge but a request: that both sides begin anew the quest for peace, before the dark powers of destruction unleashed by science engulf all humanity in planned or accidental self-destruction. We dare not tempt them with weakness. For only when our arms are sufficient beyond doubt can we be certain beyond doubt that they will never be employed.

“In the world today many people think that one can do without religion, and that they themselves have outgrown religion by reason of their evolution. Many have no religious belief, and therefore the world has never been in a more chaotic condition. No doubt one finds in tradition and in history that in the name of religion the selfishness and ignorance of mankind have been given free reign. This is the reason why man, revolting against this state of things, has forsaken religion and forgotten that spirit which, in the name of religion, has also played its part in the world.”

Hazrat Inayat Khan (1882–1927) Indian Sufi

The Unity of Religious Ideals, Part I : Seeking for the Ideal.
The Spiritual Message of Hazrat Inayat Khan

“We're capable of great things. And I've no doubt that the creature that follows us will be capable of even more. Evolution didn't stop with us: "Oh great and beautiful mankind! We've made it!" We haven't. Evolution can go on forever.”

Gene Roddenberry (1921–1991) American television screenwriter and producer

“One can show the following: given any rule, however "fundamental" or "necessary" for science, there are always circumstances when it is advisable not only to ignore the rule, but to adopt its opposite.”

Paul Karl Feyerabend book Against Method

Pg. 23.
Against Method (1975)

“The evidence of evolution pours in, not only from geology, paleontology, biogeography, and anatomy (Darwin's chief sources), but from molecular biology and every other branch of the life sciences. To put it bluntly but fairly, anyone today who doubts that the variety of life on this planet was produced by a process of evolution is simply ignorant — inexcusably ignorant, in a world where three out of four people have learned to read and write. Doubts about the power of Darwin's idea of natural selection to explain this evolutionary process are still intellectually respectable, however, although the burden of proof for such skepticism has become immense…”

Daniel Dennett book Darwin's Dangerous Idea

Darwin's Dangerous Idea (1995)

“When in doubt, ignore and be horribly unimpressed”

Laurell K. Hamilton (1963) Novelist

“A lie that is accepted by a sufficient number of ignorant voters becomes a political truth.”

James Bovard (1956) American journalist

From Terrorism & Tyranny: Trampling Freedom, Justice and Peace to Rid the World of Evil (Palgrave, 2003) http://www.jimbovard.com/Epigrams%20page%20Terrorism%20&%20Tyranny.htm

“To brand evolution as “just a theory” is the finest compliment one can confer on it!”

Mordechai Ben-Ari (1948) Israeli computer scientist

Source: Just a Theory: Exploring the Nature of Science (2005), Chapter 2, “Just a Theory: What Scientists Do” (p. 38)

“Today the theory of evolution is about as much open to doubt as the theory that the earth goes round the sun.”

Richard Dawkins book The Selfish Gene

Source: The Selfish Gene (1976, 1989), Ch. 1. Why Are People?

“… given sufficient ignorance, one can doubt evolution….”

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